Inside the mill that weaves our denim
A morning on the looms in Okayama, where selvedge is still woven on shuttle looms from the 1960s.
The mill runs twelve shuttle looms, the youngest built in 1968. They are slow — a fraction of the speed of modern projectile looms — and that slowness is the point.
Why shuttle looms matter
A shuttle carries the weft thread back and forth across the full width, leaving a clean, self-finished edge: the selvedge. It also leaves the fabric with a slightly uneven, living texture that fades beautifully over years of wear.
You can feel a shuttle-woven cloth before you can see it.
The family that runs the mill has done so for three generations. Each loom has its own temperament, and the weavers tune them by ear — a looser beat here, a tighter tension there.
From loom to jean
Every roll we order is woven to our spec: 13.5oz, rope-dyed indigo, a natural cotton weft. It then travels to a small sewing workshop an hour away, where each pair is chain-stitched and finished by hand.